The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: danderson on December 30, 2018, 07:15:44 AM
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Were those differences because of lesser commercial time, etc? For example Hollywood Squares had best 2 out of 3 match in daytime, but both players played entire show in syndication.
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Nighttime To Tell the Truth (1956-67): 3 rounds are played
Daytime + syndicated TTTT (1962-68 + 1969-78, respectively): 2 rounds are played
Daytime Tic Tac Dough (1956-59) + Dotto (1958) + Let's Make a Deal (1963-76 + synd. 1971-77) : Organist (first two shows), 3-or-4-piece house band (LMaD), or recorded musical cues (last season or two of daytime/synd. LMaD)
Nighttime Tic Tac Dough (1957-58) + Dotto (1958) + Let's Make a Deal (1969-71) : Big-band-type orchestra
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This is just the 1970s games. No returning champions for any of the nighttime versions of games listed here.
Hollywood Squares
Daytime - straddled, champion was crowned by winning best two out of three games
Nighttime - did not straddle, champion was crowned by winning most cash ($250 per game, $50 for every X and O in any unfinished games) and wins a car
Match Game
Daytime - straddled, two questions played for each contestant, most matches wins, ties are broken by playing an additional round, one Audience Match and one Super Match played for up to $5,000
Nighttime - did not straddle, two (later three) questions played for each contestant, most matches wins, ties are broken by sudden death tiebreaker (similar to Super Match question), two Audience Matches and one Super Match played for up to $10,000
Let's Make a Deal - no changes other than the addition of the Super Deal for the 1975-76 syndicated nighttime version
Name That Tune, Celebrity Sweepstakes, The $10,000/$20,000/$25,000 Pyramid - no significant changes other than cash/prize amounts (Celebrity Sweepstakes awarded a bonus prize for winning the game in the syndicated version)
Jeopardy - 1974-75 syndicated winners received a prize based on the amount won in the regular game
High Rollers - partway through the syndicated season, rules were changed so that any contestant who won a game played the Big Numbers (previously, contestants had to win two out of three games as in the daytime version)
The Price Is Right - no Showcase Showdown; top two prize winners played the Showcase
Break the Bank
Daytime - the bank started at $5,000 and grew by $1,000 (later $250) for every day it wasn't won, the game winner won a bonus prize, no end game
Nighttime - slightly higher values for boxes (100/300/500 instead of 100/200/300), the bank stayed at $10,000 in prizes throughout the show, end game (pick a star, win a prize)
The Gong Show - top prize increased from $516.32 to $712.05
Sale of the Century may have had some variations between the last few months of the NBC version and the syndicated version, but I'm not familiar enough with either one to know for sure.
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Were those differences because of lesser commercial time, etc? For example Hollywood Squares had best 2 out of 3 match in daytime, but both players played entire show in syndication.
To answer your question a little more succinctly, a lot of the changes in formats from daytime to nighttime were to keep each show self-contained. I don't think commercial time played into it. But now I'm curious as to why that became the preferred method. In '77, Joker's Wild proved a show could be fed to stations to play in a certain order - i.e. keeping continuity with returning champions. So it wasn't strictly a technical limitation that explained why most producers chose to have contestants play for an entire show (Match Game PM, Cullen Pyramid, et al) or eliminated champions altogether (Dawson's nighttime Feud, etc.). Not to mention the shows that had no daytime analog, but still chose to go for one-and-done (Treasure Hunt, Cross-Wits, etc.)
-Jason
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A lot of the syndicated offerings before the mid-to-late 1970s were aired once per week, so carryover champions weren't really needed. Combine that with the practice of "bicycling" - rotating episodes among affiliates to save on the expense of tape, so every market's concept of "aired in order" was different - and it was necessary to keep games self-contained.
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In '77, Joker's Wild proved a show could be fed to stations to play in a certain order - i.e. keeping continuity with returning champions. So it wasn't strictly a technical limitation that explained why most producers chose to have contestants play for an entire show...
I'm thinking that although they proved it *could* be done, it maybe still wasn't the easiest or most convenient way to distribute syndicated episodes.
I wonder if there were prize-budget restrictions, too. Although daytime network shows capped winnings at a particular level, how would that be handled in syndication? Maybe giving players a single episode is a way of avoiding that issue entirely.
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This is just the 1970s games. No returning champions for any of the nighttime versions of games listed here.
Hollywood Squares
Daytime - straddled, champion was crowned by winning best two out of three games
Nighttime - did not straddle, champion was crowned by winning most cash ($250 per game, $50 for every X and O in any unfinished games) and wins a car
The winner chose a celebrity and won a prize worth at least $5000; the most expensive prize was usually a car.
Also, I think the amount won per game went up from $250 to $300 at some point.
Name That Tune, Celebrity Sweepstakes, The $10,000/$20,000/$25,000 Pyramid - no significant changes other than cash/prize amounts (Celebrity Sweepstakes awarded a bonus prize for winning the game in the syndicated version)
Special rule for nighttime (Cullen-hosted) Pyramid: if they didn't have enough time to finish the second game (they had not introduced the "fastest time wins" tiebreakers yet), whoever was ahead got $2500, which was split if they were tied.
Name That Tune went through a number of changes in its weekly format.
At first, it was pretty much just like the daytime (NBC Dennis James) format, except that in the daytime version, the Golden Medley was 6 tunes for $2000, while in the nighttime version, it was 7 tunes for $15,000 in cash and prizes, although a lot of times, that included an $11,000 52-day Mediterranean cruise that the producers figured very few contestants would actually take (one did, and he missed a tournament because of it).
Later, each Golden Medley winner came back the following week and tried to answer a "mystery tune" (usually a song you have heard before, but didn't know had a title) for $100,000 ($10,000 a year for ten years). This lasted for two seasons, and in each season, the contestants who tried and failed to answer the mystery tune came back for a tournament to win $100,000 in cash and prizes.
In (I think) the fall of 1977, they changed the format again; the two contestants played the entire show, with the Golden Medley being a buzz-in round, and after six weeks, the winners came back for a tournament with a $100,000 prize.
Jeopardy - 1974-75 syndicated winners received a prize based on the amount won in the regular game
Early in the run, there was a bonus round; there was a board with 30 slips, and each one had a prize - most had cars or trips (usually to Rome), but two had halves of $25,000. Also, most of the contestants were winners from the daytime version, at least at first (I am not sure when, or even if, this changed), and the player who was first to run a category in a game won a prize (at first, a car, but when they changed what the winner won, it became a trip to London).
The Gong Show - top prize increased from $516.32 to $712.05
In the Gary Owens-hosted shows, it was $712.05, but when Chuck Barris took over, it because $716.32, presumably to make it easier for him to remember. Also, a lot of the contestants were from the daytime show; in fact, at least one daytime winner got gonged on the nighttime one.
Sale of the Century may have had some variations between the last few months of the NBC version and the syndicated version, but I'm not familiar enough with either one to know for sure.
On the nighttime version, the winners played a bonus round, where they selected a difficulty level ($50, $100, or $200) and were asked three questions; if they got all three correct, they won a trip, a fur coat, or a car, respectively.
Also:
Family Feud - Fast Money was played for $10,000; also, while the daytime games were still played to 200 at the time, the nighttime ones went from 200 to 300, and then to 400.
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Also, I think the amount won per game went up from $250 to $300 at some point.
I believe the $300 per game was only on the 1968 NBC primetime run.
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This is just the 1970s games. No returning champions for any of the nighttime versions of games listed here.
Hollywood Squares
Daytime - straddled, champion was crowned by winning best two out of three games
Nighttime - did not straddle, champion was crowned by winning most cash ($250 per game, $50 for every X and O in any unfinished games) and wins a car
The winner chose a celebrity and won a prize worth at least $5000; the most expensive prize was usually a car.
Also, I think the amount won per game went up from $250 to $300 at some point.
Name That Tune, Celebrity Sweepstakes, The $10,000/$20,000/$25,000 Pyramid - no significant changes other than cash/prize amounts (Celebrity Sweepstakes awarded a bonus prize for winning the game in the syndicated version)
Special rule for nighttime (Cullen-hosted) Pyramid: if they didn't have enough time to finish the second game (they had not introduced the "fastest time wins" tiebreakers yet), whoever was ahead got $2500, which was split if they were tied.
Name That Tune went through a number of changes in its weekly format.
At first, it was pretty much just like the daytime (NBC Dennis James) format, except that in the daytime version, the Golden Medley was 6 tunes for $2000, while in the nighttime version, it was 7 tunes for $15,000 in cash and prizes, although a lot of times, that included an $11,000 52-day Mediterranean cruise that the producers figured very few contestants would actually take (one did, and he missed a tournament because of it).
Later, each Golden Medley winner came back the following week and tried to answer a "mystery tune" (usually a song you have heard before, but didn't know had a title) for $100,000 ($10,000 a year for ten years). This lasted for two seasons, and in each season, the contestants who tried and failed to answer the mystery tune came back for a tournament to win $100,000 in cash and prizes.
In (I think) the fall of 1977, they changed the format again; the two contestants played the entire show, with the Golden Medley being a buzz-in round, and after six weeks, the winners came back for a tournament with a $100,000 prize.
Jeopardy - 1974-75 syndicated winners received a prize based on the amount won in the regular game
Early in the run, there was a bonus round; there was a board with 30 slips, and each one had a prize - most had cars or trips (usually to Rome), but two had halves of $25,000. Also, most of the contestants were winners from the daytime version, at least at first (I am not sure when, or even if, this changed), and the player who was first to run a category in a game won a prize (at first, a car, but when they changed what the winner won, it became a trip to London).
The Gong Show - top prize increased from $516.32 to $712.05
In the Gary Owens-hosted shows, it was $712.05, but when Chuck Barris took over, it because $716.32, presumably to make it easier for him to remember. Also, a lot of the contestants were from the daytime show; in fact, at least one daytime winner got gonged on the nighttime one.
Sale of the Century may have had some variations between the last few months of the NBC version and the syndicated version, but I'm not familiar enough with either one to know for sure.
On the nighttime version, the winners played a bonus round, where they selected a difficulty level ($50, $100, or $200) and were asked three questions; if they got all three correct, they won a trip, a fur coat, or a car, respectively.
Also:
Family Feud - Fast Money was played for $10,000; also, while the daytime games were still played to 200 at the time, the nighttime ones went from 200 to 300, and then to 400.
With Hollywood Squares, Peter Marshall often gives the winner the keys to a car. I assume that was the grand prize, Kenny Williams would do the plug, and then Peter would do the sign off.
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Break the Bank
Daytime - the bank started at $5,000 and grew by $1,000 (later $250) for every day it wasn't won, the game winner won a bonus prize, no end game
Nighttime - slightly higher values for boxes (100/300/500 instead of 100/200/300), the bank stayed at $10,000 in prizes throughout the show, end game (pick a star, win a prize)
Actually, on the syndicated Barry version, the bonus round was pretty much a carbon copy of the traditional B&E bonus rounds: Try to reach/exceed $x,xxx while avoiding the automatic loss and you win -- in this case, the celebrity with the BUST card.
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Special rule for nighttime (Cullen-hosted) Pyramid: if they didn't have enough time to finish the second game (they had not introduced the "fastest time wins" tiebreakers yet), whoever was ahead got $2500, which was split if they were tied.
Clarification: this was done in the first season. The second season did have the "fastest 7-out-of-7 in the tiebreaker wins" rule.
Also, the Big 7 was worth $1000 (instead of the daytime's $500) in the first season, and a varying amount from show to show (I think 1000, 2000, or 3000, but I'm not sure) in the second season.
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Syndicated Card Sharks added prize cards to the decks while eliminating the $100 for winning the game. The daytime run did not have such extras.
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Break the Bank
Daytime - the bank started at $5,000 and grew by $1,000 (later $250) for every day it wasn't won, the game winner won a bonus prize, no end game
Nighttime - slightly higher values for boxes (100/300/500 instead of 100/200/300), the bank stayed at $10,000 in prizes throughout the show, end game (pick a star, win a prize)
Actually, on the syndicated Barry version, the bonus round was pretty much a carbon copy of the traditional B&E bonus rounds: Try to reach/exceed $x,xxx while avoiding the automatic loss and you win -- in this case, the celebrity with the BUST card.
You're right; faulty memory.
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This is just the 1970s games. No returning champions for any of the nighttime versions of games
Sale of the Century may have had some variations between the last few months of the NBC version and the syndicated version, but I'm not familiar enough with either one to know for sure.
On the nighttime version, the winners played a bonus round, where they selected a difficulty level ($50, $100, or $200) and were asked three questions; if they got all three correct, they won a trip, a fur coat, or a car, respectively.
Is that 70s Sale or Perry’s? Was the money shopping dollars or walking-away money?
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Sounds like 70s. I don’t remember any significant differences in Perry’s versions.
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Sounds like 70s. I don’t remember any significant differences in Perry’s versions.
Only difference I can recall in Perry's era came with the shopping format, once you got close to the Lot. In daytime, the next step after the car was the cash jackpot, as a standalone prize. In the syndicated series, following the car was all six prizes, minus the jackpot (in both cases, the next step after these was everything on stage plus the cash).
IMHO the nighttime show got it right, since it actually gave you an incentive to go all the way, rather than just pulling the rip cord with $70-odd-grand despite being within spitting distance of the whole shebang.
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I'm sure the contestants who came away with spendable cash instead of several prizes they may not desire felt differently.
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Regarding TPiR, first the obvious differences:
Daytime (when it was still 30 minutes):
- Hosted by Bob Barker
- Johnny Olson says "A fortune in fabulous prizes may go to these people today, if they can tell when the price is right!"
Nighttime:
- Hosted by Dennis James
- "A fortune in fabulous prizes may go to these people tonight..."
For the more subtle differences, one involved the showcase. The daytime version had a commercial between the second showcase bid and the price reveal; the nighttime version, did not. But that resulted in an odd effect; you know how they put those cards in the showcase podiums that identified who bid on which showcase (e.g., "Sailboat","Living Room", I actually once saw "Elevator" when they did the dept. store theme)? On the nighttime shows, as soon as they cut back to the contestants, the labels were already there! This also meant they put the price tags in those little side podium pockets during that time. I thought it was kind of "sneaky", like, you knew the crew was busy there while you weren't looking!
Another subtle difference was in the Range Game. I remember noticing that the Range Finder at night covered a $200 field, while on a daytime show that aired shortly thereafter had it cover only $150. Was this because they wanted more winners on the nighttime shows? Or was it because the game was still new, and the gameplay was still being fleshed out.
Finally, is it just me, or did the nighttime shows have, on average, more expensive IUFB prizes. I think it was Dennis James who announced the first 4-digit IUFB that I ever heard: "One THOUSAND, two-hundred and seventy-nine dollars" (or was it 75?).
Who remembers the short-lived nighttime version of (Trebek) Jeopardy!? They had higher dollar values on the board, and there were 4 contestants instead of 3. Of course, this show was actually titled "Super J!", but hey...
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Higher point values but without an appreciable increase in difficulty means there are four accomplished champions fighting over table scraps.
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As Travis mentioned, Super J! was played for points, not dollars, and the points had no correlation to cash payouts in the game, so they could have made those point values whatever they wanted.
Also, Double Jeopardy was actually Double-And-A-Half Jeopardy.
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Who remembers the short-lived nighttime version of (Trebek) Jeopardy!? They had higher dollar values on the board, and there were 4 contestants instead of 3. Of course, this show was actually titled "Super J!", but hey...
I think it's pretty fondly remembered here. I liked the marble finish on parts of the set.
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Daytime (when it was still 30 minutes):
- Hosted by Bob Barker
- Johnny Olson says "A fortune in fabulous prizes may go to these people today, if they can tell when the price is right!"
Nighttime:
- Hosted by Dennis James
- "A fortune in fabulous prizes may go to these people tonight..."
For Bob's three seasons in nighttime, the spiel changed to "Right now, an audience is sparkling with excitement, because a fortune in fabulous prizes may be theirs tonight, if they know when The Price Is Right!" (this was later reworked a bit for the first tapings of the Tom Kennedy version), with twinkling scrolling lights superimposed over the audience during the intro.
The daytime version had a commercial between the second showcase bid and the price reveal; the nighttime version, did not.
This was also the case on hour-long daytime shows from 1975-78.
Another subtle difference was in the Range Game. I remember noticing that the Range Finder at night covered a $200 field, while on a daytime show that aired shortly thereafter had it cover only $150. Was this because they wanted more winners on the nighttime shows? Or was it because the game was still new, and the gameplay was still being fleshed out.
The nighttime show often experimented with the pricing games, so that's likely what happened here. The $200 range was only used once, near the end of Season 1, shrinking to the standard $150 thereafter.
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I think it's pretty fondly remembered here. I liked the marble finish on parts of the set.
Mileage may vary. Keeping in mind that it was basically put together to get Monopoly off the ground:
Meaningless points. If the tournament brings together the thirty-six best players ever, why not let winners keep their score in dollars, or losers keep their score in the game where they go out, or some combination therein.
Looking through the Jeopardy Archive, it looks like a few also-rans managed to fluke their way through the first round. Perhaps if every round was a three-panel game the best would rise. (That said, Bob Verini stood to curb-stomp the winnings record by eighty grand had things gone different.)
I would judge it to be more awkward than the Ultimate Tournament. 10th Anniversary, $1m Masters and Decades were much better.
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Who remembers the short-lived nighttime version of (Trebek) Jeopardy!? They had higher dollar values on the board, and there were 4 contestants instead of 3. Of course, this show was actually titled "Super J!", but hey...
It was a 13-episode tournament for one summer, so of course it was short-lived. The 4 contestants was used for the first round to get more champions involved, but since the first round lasted for 9 of the 13 episodes, it may have seemed like that was the rule throughout.
Meaningless points. If the tournament brings together the thirty-six best players ever, why not let winners keep their score in dollars, or losers keep their score in the game where they go out, or some combination therein.
$5,000 for players eliminated in quarterfinals and $10,000 for players eliminated in semifinals was (and still is) standard for tournaments. Letting losers keep their score is generally a bad idea in a tournament if it could affect (or be affected by) Final Jeopardy! wagering strategies. It only happens in tournament finals, and Super Jeopardy! only had a one-day final.
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When this thread was first posted, I tried to find this article (https://www.nytimes.com/1979/11/18/archives/game-showstvs-glittering-gold-mine-game-shows.html?_r=0), but had no luck. Reading through a related thread allowed me to finally find it. From the NY Times, 1979, it discusses the budgets of network vs. daytime shows. Nothing earth-shattering, but worth a share.
The biggest bargain on television, for the networks and the affiliated stations, at any rate, is a game show. Typically, five 30‐minute shows, a week's supply, can be produced for $20,000. The producer sells it to one of the networks at a minimum markup of 25 percent, but it can be double or triple that for such well established shows as “The Price Is Right” and “The Hollywood Squares” or newer successes like “Family Feud” and “The Gong Show.”
From then on, the numbers start to get a lot bigger. If a game show is carried by 175 stations, as the most successful ones are, it will produce a total of something like $100,000 a day in advertising revenue. Better yet, in addition to the five minutes of commercial time built into each 30‐minute episode, the plugs for products that are being given away, which are also paid for, can add up to another three minutes.
It might mean that the producers receive the smallest return, but if a net profit of $250,000 to SI million a year for a single show seems inadequate, much larger sums are available in what is called the syndication market. selling his show to one of the networks, which makes it available to its affiliated stations, the producer sells it directly, to independent, unaffiliated stations. The price he gets can range from $50 for each 30‐minute show in the (Continued on smallest markets to $5,000 or more in New York, Los Angeles Chicago.
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Very interesting read! Much appreciated. We always sort of knew that nighttime shows gave away more at night to make them seem like spectacles worthy of that hour, and that they generally had bigger budgets. But that article provides a better understanding as to why they'd spend that money - the return on investment was much more significant for the producer(s).
-Jason